Google’s New Trademark Policy: Early Findings

May 9, 2008
by Latitude

Google’s long-awaited (and for some dreaded) new trademark policy finally came into effect earlier this week, on May 5. This seismic change allows advertisers to bid on previously protected trademarked terms, presenting many challenges but also creating opportunities for marketers. In our latest Market Update, published last week, we predicted a huge increase in brand terms’ CPCs in the immediate aftermath of the policy change, before the market would stabilise. So how has it turned out?

Well we’ve done a quick analysis of the CPC evolution for the main brand terms we manage here at Latitude, and the change has indeed been pretty dramatic. The new rule actually took place on the evening of the 5th May, meaning that the real impact was seen the following day. On the 6th May the average CPC of brand terms rose by an impressive 437%. However, over the last 2 days (May 7 and May 8), prices settled down, largely due to Google’s Quality Score removing less relevant advertisers. May 8 still saw brand terms 115% more expensive than before the change on trademark policy though.

We’ll keep tracking the CPCs and will post updated observations in a few weeks time.